A Funerall Elegy upon the most Honored upon Earth, and now glorious in Heaven, His Excellency Robert Devereux Earl of Essex and Ewe, Viscount Hereford, Lord Ferrers of Chartly Bourchier and Lovaine, late Generall of England.
VVHat do our sighs and tears when Essex dyes,
They are for him but petty Obsequies.
For when such Heroe's use to fall a sleepe
The drops of rain shew that the heavens weepe;
And those huge stormes, which since his death have fell
Say that the world with very grief doth swell.
As heavy breathings are thrown all about
Puffing at what is left for what is out.
What then do lines, why do the Muses try
To groan out, not to speak thy Elegie;
And why does each prophane hand to thy hearse
Presume to offer up a mourning verse?
Griefe makes men cry, and each Plebean head
Doth scan his sighs with pains not scanteled:
The more we see, the more we see our losse;
When all affaires are now upon the tosse.
Thy birth was Noble, but thy vertue more,
Which in the house of fame hath layd a store
That will endure whilst that a pen can run,
Or mortall threads of life by fate be spun:
Thy theame will Volumes fill, and thy faire shade,
Of making books will urge a constant trade:
Sorrow strikes dum, in this we all are laid,
I can say nothing, but I would have said.
Henry Mill.
LONDON Printed by John Macock for William Ley, and are to be sold at his shop at Pauls Chaine. 1646.